


Doing the Math

by doublejoint



Category: Homestar Runner
Genre: F/F, Secret Crush, mild pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:00:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29574288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublejoint/pseuds/doublejoint
Summary: What's Her Face accidentally lures So and So into a tabletop game with the promise of math.
Relationships: So and So/What's Her Face (Homestar Runner)
Kudos: 2
Collections: February Ficlet Challenge 2021: Apocalypse No





	Doing the Math

**Author's Note:**

> For Day 19 of the February Ficlet Challenge: Game Over
> 
> brief reference to canon-typical violence and temporary character death.
> 
> (see end notes for spoiler content notes)

Of course, the one year What’s Her Face is looking forward to midwinter break, everything goes wrong. Cheerleader goes on vacation with her family, but Sci-Fi Greg is at a convention with all the other Gregs that she can’t afford a ticket to. The Ugly One has to help out at her dad’s store, and So and So had conveniently forgotten to give What’s Her Face her new phone number.

Instead of staring at the wall or hanging at the diner where the waitstaff already hate her for ordering a single coffee or tea, she heads to the library to work on character sheets for the next  _ Dungeons and Dragons  _ session with the Gregs, if they don’t continue their game at the convention without her. 

The tabletop gaming books at the library are old, but they’re not very well-used, mostly because no one knows they’re there, and there’s probably no use checking out a book for three weeks when your sessions are every other week. There are too many numbers and too many options, but all the good stuff about classes is what she’s really looking for; she flips through the pages. Something about bards catches her eye, and she flips back, trying to find it again when she hears the creak and scrape of the chair across from her on the floor.

So and So, a stack of MCAT (isn’t that grad school?) test prep books in her hand, sits down almost soundlessly. 

“Hi,” says So and So.

“Hi,” says What’s Her Face.

She flips the page again, having forgotten what she was looking for, to a page full of numbers.

“Ooh, are you doing math?”

“Stats,” says What’s Her Face. “It’s for a game I play sometimes.”

“A math game?” So and So’s face lights up in excitement, like when she’d won the spelling bee in third grade, and What’s Her Face feels something like a fork in her chest.

She looks down; she’s not bleeding. Strange. She nods.

“Sure, a math game.”

“Let me play with you!” she says, the loudest What’s Her Face has ever heard her speak in a library.

* * *

What’s Her Face had been pretty sure you can’t actually get much of a game out of _ Dungeons and Dragons _ with two people, but So and So insists on running an experiment with three different characters after What’s Her Face explains builds, two different minimaxes and an extremely balanced character.

“Of course, it all depends on the randomness of the dice, but statistically, if you roll the dice a lot…”

What’s Her Face nods in what she hopes looks like an understanding way. Math has never been her strong suit, and she always has to use a calculator without Open Source Greg there to run everyone’s numbers through his specialized tabletop calculator program written in assembly. It’s probably her least favorite part of these games, and is it enough for So and So to get through one session? Or is she really so full of pity and boredom?

Neither, actually; she’s a pretty good storyteller (all those years of Brett Bretterson have led her to come up with sufficiently strange ideas for NPCs and bosses that keep things fun) and she’s much more enthusiastic about What’s Her Face’s input than any of the Gregs ever are. Despite it only being the two of them, and despite So and So’s lack of experience and tendency to pick whatever option lets her do the most complicated calculations possible, it’s actually...fun.

* * *

The week stretches on, and then without warning it’s Friday night. They’ve gotten through three games and then some, after total party kills, despite So and So’s conservative die-rolling (she seems okay with it, something about rerunning experiments multiple times). Cheerleader will be back tomorrow, and for her, The Ugly One will find some way to get out of work, and it won’t be just the two of them. So and So would never admit she’s done this to anyone, and with the only witness being What’s Her Face, there’s no reason to think it would get out any other way. 

And they’re going to go back to school and everything is going to be normal again. They won’t talk except when Cheerleader and The Ugly One are there. So and So will pretend she has no idea what a tabletop game is, and deny hanging out with What’s Her Face, make up some dumb lie about Brett Bretterson or doing her stepmom’s taxes or something. It’ll be like getting game over on a video game where the last savepoint was hours ago, after having executed a tricky combination and gotten lucky with the random numbers. So and So is still scribbling on scratch paper, her pencil moving faster than What’s Her Face can track, double- and triple-checking her work like she does at the end of every algebra test (and she’s still the first one to finish). There’s a look of crazed glee on her face, like when The Ugly One had said she was going to have a boy/girl party, only--more intense.

It would be nice if they didn’t have to pretend to forget. If What’s Her Face could reach across the table and tuck So and So’s hair behind her ear, adjust her headband--where did that thought come from? It’s the kind of thing that, if she were to voice out loud, would cause the universe to twist around and chop her in half with its fabric. The social dynamics of their clique can only be upset so much; What’s Her Face isn’t totally stupid. So and So looks up.

“I’ve calculated it! That’s twenty-two damage to the Chumbly Wumbly bear, with a plus-two luck giving my paladin an increased chance of a critical, and I now roll the twelve-sided die, with a ten or more being critical, and...six. Which leaves the Chumbly Wumbly bear with ten hit points.”

She crosses her arms. “Your move.”

What’s Her Face’s hand feels glued to the table. She lifts it up. There’s no actual glue stuck to it, which means she could reach out and touch, not So and So’s hair or face but her hand, open on the table, indents pressed into it from the pencil.

“What’s that weird thing you’re doing with your hand?”

“Nothing,” says What’s Her Face. “I, uh...I stab the Chumbly Wumbly Bear with my sword.”

So and So is already back at the pencil and paper. At least, when she’s this focused on math, she won’t notice What’s Her Face looking at her like this.

**Author's Note:**

> spoiler content notes: they do not actually get together in this fic.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
